Nom-Nom jumped off the platform that once held a Rail Gun and landed on the deck of the Southern Vigil.
She blinked, looking down at the dent beneath her boots, then up at the massive double-barreled cannon swiveling toward the sky, still firing spell after spell into the distance.
The cannon boomed again, the recoil shaking the deck beneath her feet, and far above, a tiny blue blur zig-zagged between flashes of fire and lightning.
Nom-Nom squinted.
"How long does he intend to play up there?" she murmured, a little impatient. "We're here to rescue X-97."
The cannon tried to rotate toward her but it didn't get the chance.
Purple fire surged around her shoulders, rolling forward as the massive silhouette of a dragon's head burst out from her own, jaws opening wide with obvious enthusiasm.
She leaned forward and bit.
And the cannon vanished between those flaming jaws, barrels, runes, spell matrix and all, disappearing with a crunch that echoed through the deck like a snapped tree.
Nom-Nom straightened, chewing thoughtfully for half a second before-
"…Crunchy," she decided.
[Nom, nice! Okay, new rule. Eat the cannons that are shooting at me first. The glowy ones.]
She brightened instantly.
"Oh! Okay!" she said aloud, nodding hard.
She looked around.
And indeed, there were a lot of glowy ones.
"So many snacks…"
She crouched, flames gathering beneath her feet again, and jumped.
This time, she didn't launch straight upward.
She angled herself sideways, landing on the next cannon down the line with a metallic clang that made the weapon wobble.
The cannon tried to fire.
Nom-Nom leaned down, peering into one of its barrels.
"…You're pointing the wrong way," she said politely.
Then she opened her mouth, purple fire flaring, and the dragon's silhouette surged forward again and-
-Chomp
The cannon disappeared.
Nom-Nom landed lightly on the deck beside the empty mount, spun once in place like she was deciding where to go next, and then hopped again.
She moved like a child playing hopscotch, except each hop ended with another piece of Pantheon military hardware ceasing to exist.
Above her, Nico immediately felt the barrage thinning.
[Oh, thank god! Okay, yeah, that's working. Nom, keep doing exactly that. You're doing amazing.]
Nom-Nom beamed, wings flaring as she bounced onto another cannon.
"Yay!"
And deep within the Southern Vigil, Nymira recalculated frantically as entire weapon arrays vanished faster than targeting algorithms could compensate.
Up on the deck, Nom-Nom hopped again, then again, following the line of cannons that were still firing skyward, her movements guided by Nico's frantic mental pointing.
[Left! Left. Okay, that one. YES, that one!]
Nom-Nom adjusted mid-jump, twisting gracefully despite her missing wing before landing sideways on a cannon that had just begun to glow brighter.
She looked up, following its aim, and saw Nico streak past overhead, spells grazing his cloak.
And then -
-Chomp.
The cannon vanished.
Nom-Nom brushed the imaginary dust from her hands and looked around.
She'd been at it for a small while now, and the number of cannons had visibly thinned, but they were still there, so she crouched again.
"Okay," she said cheerfully. "Next!"
Nom-Nom crouched, flames gathering beneath her feet again as she prepared to jump-
The world snapped sideways.
Water exploded around her head in an instant, compressing so violently that it locked her neck in place before she could even react.
The pressure hit like a vice, and then the force shifted, yanking her off her footing and dragging her body across the deck, before slamming her headfirst against the open deck at the heart of the Southern Vigil before dissolving away.
Choking and coughing, she pushed herself upright, flames licking along her shoulders as she scanned the space.
That's when the voice reached her.
"I'm using all my paid time off after this."
Those words were dry, almost tired, carried from the command stairway above.
From which a man descended at an unhurried pace, unbuttoning his captain's blazer as he came.
As he reached the end of the staircase, he slipped off his blazer, medals clinking softly before he draped it over the railing and left it there like an afterthought.
Beneath it was a black undershirt stretched tight over a frame built for violence.
Nom-Nom's wings flared slightly as she stood fully, heat rolling off her in waves.
"You're in the way," she growled.
"And you're supposed to still be on that island," Thane replied calmly, stopping a few meters in front of her.
-BOOM-!
The deck beneath her feet cratered as Nom-Nom launched forward with a sonic crack, the air tearing behind her as she dashed straight for him, every instinct screaming to crush the man who wanted her still trapped on that island.
But she didn't even make it halfway.
Jagged ice erupted from the deck in front of her at an angle and -
-CRASH-!
She slammed into the spike stomach first with a bone-rattling force.
The impact knocked the breath clean out of her as shards of ice exploded outward, skidding across the deck in every direction, as she crashed to a stop, hands slamming against the frozen surface, jolting ripples of agony through her core.
If she hadn't been a greater dragon, it would've punched straight through her.
Nom-Nom barely had time to register that thought before the ice moved.
The spike surged forward, carrying her with it, shoving her body across the deck before slamming her into the raised platform of a cannon she'd eaten minutes ago.
And the next moment, ice wrapped around her from all sides in a violent rush, locking her arms and wings as it formed into a thick, jagged horizontal pillar, pinning her in place.
Thane stepped closer, boots crunching against scattered frost.
"Come on," he said evenly. "I'm not making the same mistake those idiots did."
"I know you're a greater dragon," he continued. "So stop pretending."